


You can hinder me, but you'll never stop me

by Jane271



Series: Black Phoenix [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Child Neglect, Family Drama, Family Issues, Friends as real family, Gilderoy Lockhart - Freeform, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Jay's not a bad person, stop acting like it people, yes I made him a tag and not a character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-28
Updated: 2018-11-20
Packaged: 2019-02-08 00:46:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 17,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12853092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jane271/pseuds/Jane271
Summary: More and more complications are forming in the Potter family. Lily and James are at their wits end with their daughter, whom they discover is not a sweet and innocent as they thought. Meanwhile Charlie is getting into more troubles with his studies, while his sister is thriving. The people around Jennifer are starting to wonder how she does it, thinking of her doing dark rituals and cheating, never once thinking that it was through had work, day in, day out. Jay is slowly losing her patiance with them, and the distance between her and her family grows.And what's this about students getting paralyzed?





	1. Vacation time

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own anything.  
> All rights belongs to J. K. Rowling.

As she entered her hotel room, all she could think about was how exhausted she was. Muggle means of transportation were terrible, she decided. The room was nice enough, and her eyes immediately fell on the bed. While it was a big, two-person bed, it was not the same as her own. It would do though. _‘I’ll unpack in the morning.’_ She thought. Dropping her bags, she took off her sandals and fell face first in the bed. Out the window, she could almost see the beach, but the building in front of the one she was in blocked it almost fully.

Giving in to her exhaustion, she fell asleep with her day clothes still on.

`````````````````````````````````````

A few hours later she was awake once more, and began unpacking the few things she’d taken with her. Just enough clothes to last a week and a map. She’d be here for a few days, before leaving for Paris, where the first place was she needed to go. Outside, the weather was beautiful, warm and not a cloud in the sky. A perfect day for the beach, she decided with a smile on her face.

After getting dressed, she made her way to the restaurant, getting herself some breakfast before heading straight to the beach, feeling like she didn’t have a care in the world for once.

````````````````````````````````````````

It was on day three that she made some friends. Two girls and one boy, all around 14-years-old. And they invited her to go to Nice together. They’d leave at the end of the week.

“You know… I’m just not sure…” Jay said, looking thoughtful.

“Aw, c’mon. what’s the worst that could happen? That you’ll be home a few days later?” Max argued, “Besides, there’ll still be plenty of time to go to Paris!” Jessi looked up from her sandwich, hoping that that would change the other girl’s mind. She was a lot of fun to be together with after all.

Jay was shewing on her own sandwich, while Rose still hadn’t decided on what kind she wanted. Jay thought about it. She could go to Paris tomorrow, get her books and move on, or, or she could just have a proper vacation. It was very tempting, but was it worth the shitstorm awaiting her at home if she couldn’t finish her trip soon enough?

But Max was right, what would happen? Her parents would ground her, be angry with her or ignore her… and she really couldn’t think of anything else. Was that something she was afraid of? No, of course not. Her parents didn’t really care, she knew that. And, and… were those really the only consequences she could think of?

“You know… you have a point Max, why not?” As soon as the words had left her mouth, all three looked up, shocked at the sudden change. “You, you’re serious?! You’ll come with us?” Rose nearly shouted in her ear. “Yeah. I’ll come along.”

“Woot!” Max jumped up, throwing the last curst of his sandwich in the air, probably unintentional, seeing the look on his face. “YES GIRL!” He picked Jay up in bridal style, running to the sea.

“What are you doing?!” Jay shrieked, holding on to Max’ neck. The only response she got was laughter. “Oh no, don’t you dare!” She yelled, his intent getting more obvious as the sea got closer. With a small sprint Max threw both Jay and himself in the sea, getting a high-pitched shriek from Jay and laughter from the two other girls.

```````````````````````````````````````

A few weeks later, Jay wondered to herself how she ended up in Spain, a country she wasn’t even supposed to go to, but later decided it wasn’t worth breaking her head over it. It was fun after all.

She was supposed to go home tomorrow, but had decided long ago that it wouldn’t be happening. She was having an amazing time, just travelling around, making friends and visiting places she’d only dreamed of.

Instead of feeling guilty for leaving nothing but a note to her family regarding her choice to leave them for the summer, she simply sipped her soda and watched an overly enthusiastic round of beach volleyball.

She was going to Teruel tomorrow, a province capitol in Spain, where an herb – one that was very hard to obtain in Britain - was sold. It was mostly known for its disinfecting abilities, but the plants were not easy to come by. The seeds were expensive, but she’d met a wizard who needed help starting his car again, whom she’d helped. As a reward, she’d gotten a special reduction of price, seeing as there wouldn’t have been a lot of seeds left of the herb for sale this season, had they been left in the heat any longer.

Cheering was suddenly heard over the beach, the match over. Team bandanas had somehow managed to win from Team Shirts while she’d been lost in thought, which was impressive, they’d been four points behind when she last looked at them. She smiled, cheering along with the teens who had been rooting for team bandanas.

Life was good, she decided, and apart from the occasional nightmare, she had no reason to think otherwise.


	2. Returning Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't own anything.  
> All rights belong to J. K. Rowling.

James and Lily were sitting at the kitchen table, an open letter laying in front of them. Both Sirius and Remus had taken Charlie to Gimmauld Place, when what had happened became clear. Lily looked with blurry eyes at her husband, who was sitting pale-faced on her right. The letter in front of them was from their daughter, letting them know that she’d gone on a vacation on her own. The date on the letter was from the day after they left. In the letter, she described her reasons for leaving, not wanting to stay in an empty home for over two months. When they’d arrived home, they were not so surprised that Jennifer was not waiting for them, just like last time. But when they couldn’t find her anywhere, Remus found the letter, addressed to both Lily and James. That was a big blow for them, learning that their daughter, their little girl, had left, even if it was just for the duration of the vacation.

At first they were both outraged that yet again, she hadn’t listened to them. Later though, Remus pointed out that she had a point, even if he didn’t agree with her. It was heartbreaking for the parents, knowing that they’d hurt their baby girl so much that she left. For the first few hours, all they could do was cry. Sirius brought Charlie to stay with the Weasleys for now, allowing them to fully focus on finding their missing child.

A few hours later, when there were no more tears to be shed, blind panic set in. The girl was only eleven! (more like twelve now, god had they missed her birthday again?). Upon that set of thought, James immediately went to the Ministry, start a search for their missing daughter. Lily set herself on contacting everyone they knew, hoping that Jennifer had at least informed _someone_ of where she’d gone off to.

They found very little.

There wasn’t anything to be found safe for a train ticket, paid for in cash by her a few days before she left home. Since then there had been several withdrawals from her personal bank account, from all over Europe, but the goblins were unsupportive of their search and every time they found a lead on her location, she had already left.

They came home nine days ago, and still no Jennifer. The schoolyear was starting in just five days, and still she hadn’t come home. Both parents were terrified that something had happened to her, the only signs of life they’d found were the withdrawals at the bank, and the last one was almost two weeks ago.

The Flu flared up again, but neither looked up from the table to see who had just arrived. There had been a lot of people entering and leaving their house the last nine days.

“From the looks of it, nothing found here?” It was Sirius again. James still kept his head down. “We think we found something though,” at this both parents looked up, hopeful looks on their faces, waiting for Sirius to continue. “We found them on that thing muggles call ‘internet’, there was a party in Spain somewhere, and some pictures were taken there.” Sirius walked forward, his pace fast and a smile on his face. “These were taken yesterday evening, and I think that it’s her! Look.”

Sirius threw a map on the table, filled with pictures of smiling teenagers, and “It’s her! Look Lily! That has to be her!” James had a picture in hand of a girl with bright blonde hair, wearing a black bikini and holding a coconut. Around her shoulders, a tall, young man had thrown his arm and they were both smiling at the camera. Lily teared up. She hadn’t seen her baby looking so genuinely happy in so long. “Well what are we still doing here? Let’s go!” James jumped up from his chair, the energy that had slowly been dissipating the past few days returning at the full.

Sirius looked sad at his best friend though. “Sorry James, but the Spanish Ministry already went there, and she was gone again.”

James and Lily both physically sagged, their hope crushed once more. “But, the teens that were there were still at the city, and upon questioning them, they found out that the British girl, as they called her, said that she unfortunately was heading back to France later that evening, and she left early that morning for the bus back to Paris.”

Lily turned to James, “If she’s really heading to France, she might come home!” James and Sirius both looked confused at her. “Am I missing something?” James asked.

Lily smiled, “She’s already been to France, remember? And to go there now, five days before the start of school, she has to take the train back! There is no anther way for her to return except for taking the train or an airplane in France!”

Both Sirius and James looked at each other, realization etching its way onto their faces. Sirius tackle hugged James, tipping them both over, while Lily closed her eyes and let out a breath of relief.

``````````````````````````````````````````````````````

The relief was not long lived however, when the time they expected the girl to come home passed, and the time before the start of school became closer and closer.

On the 29th of august, the Potters couldn’t delay buying supplies for the oncoming school year. With their feet feeling like lead, they took the Floo to Diagon Ally. The mood was somber, unlike the previous year, and even Charlie couldn’t bring himself to smile. They bought all they needed, books, potions ingrediants and more, before finally returning home.

When they finally got back home, they were surprised at the fact that the lights were on. “Lily, didn’t you turn them off before we left?” James asked his wife, a puzzled look on his face. Realization hit them all at once. As one, they stormed to the kitchen, James in the lead.

The sound of loud music hit their ears, and the scent of chicken flooded their noses.

Jay turned around, hearing the kitchen door open, a pan of fried chicken in her hands. Seening the others, she quickly turned back around and put the pan back on the stove, and not a second to soon, because both her mother and father tugged her close and gave her a tight hug, with Charlie trying to get to his sister, but to no avail.

“Hi.” Jay offered, a bit taken aback by the reaction, her voice muffled by her father’s chest. Lily began to sob, while James seemed content enough to just hug his baby girl, not making a single sound. “So… how was your vacation?” She asked her parents, an impassive look on her face.

```````````````````````````````````````````

“So, where have you been cub?” Sirius asked, looking at his niece. Merlin, she looked different since they last saw her. Her skin had a dark tan, and her hair was both lighter in color and cut shorter. In addition, she didn’t have makeup on, leaving her with a girlish look he’d missed on his cub.

“Bit of everywhere to be honest, and while it wasn’t planned, it was definitely worth it.” Jennifer looked relaxed, and for once in her life, her eyes were sparkling with happiness, a look that was very rare for her. “I was actually supposed to come back before you even noticed I was gone, but I decided that I didn’t care enough anymore.”

“Didn’t care enough? DIDN’T CARE ENOUGH?! Do you have any idea how worried we were?!” James exploded, his face turning red, “How could you have just left?! You’re twelve! You shouldn’t even be thinking of going alone on vacation, even more so without telling us where you were going-!”

Jennifer stood up from where she was sitting on the couch, snarling with anger. “Oh really?! It’s not like you are ever around for me to discuss this with you! Right?! Do you know what I do when you all leave and I’m here all alone? I wait for you to come back! You always, ALWAYS forbid me from leaving the grounds, I can never have anyone over, I DON’T EVEN HAVE FRIENDS! And you know why?! BECAUSE YOU’RE SHITTY PARENTS THAT NEVER LET ME GO ANYWHERE IS WHY! So yes, I left, and you know what? I don’t care for your opinion enough because all you ever do is forbid me from having fun and being myself! I’m so done with you, you have no idea.” Jay was heaving at the end of her rant, all the frustration from years upon years of repression, it was coming out now.

“Don’t you speak to your father that way! You crossed a very big line young lady! And in case you’ve forgotten, we’re your parents and you will listen to us!” Lily jumped in, looking absolutely furious with her daughter.

“You don’t get to say that.” Jay looked oddly calm, because not even a moment ago, she was completely blazing with rage. “You’re not my parents, you’re my wardens, keeping me in this, this _prison_ , in complete isolation. I’m never good enough for you, no matter what I do-”

“Stop, stop right there Jenny.” James said, looking into his daughter’s eyes and knowing that she meant every word she was saying.

“No. I won’t stop. Not because you don’t want the consequences that came from you neglecting me for years. Not because you tell me to. Never, ever again.” Jay said, hoping to make him understand that what they did to her, it just wasn’t acceptable. She’d learned a lot these past few weeks, and had told a few teens about why she’d left on her own. Turns out they thought she was totally right, and that she shouldn’t put up with it any longer, and after a few times of getting the same answer, followed by encouragement, she started to believe it a little herself.

At this, Lily finally jumped up from the couch, and hit her daughter across her face. “Don’t you speak to us like that! We never neglected you, you have everything a girl could ask for-”

“Lily!” James, Sirius and Remus were all looking at her, looks of surprise on their faces.

Jay’s head had snapped to the side, and she kept it there, her hair shielding her face from being viewed by the others. “Oh Merlin, Jenny dear, I, I never meant to…” Lily was looking at her, and tried to put her hands on the side of her little girl’s face. Before she could touch her though, Jay took a step back, and Lily retracted her hands, letting them fall to her sides.

Jay swung her hair out of the way, showing off the red mark on her face. “…”

James walked forward, wanting to take his daughter in his arms, to rub away the tears that were welling up in her eyes. Again, she took a step back when he came within arm’s reach.

Without another word, she left the room.

```````````````````````````````````````````````

When Jay entered her room, she sat on her bed and rubbed the tears out of her eyes. Why did everything have to go this way? Why couldn’t things just work out for once? She’d known they would be angry, but she’d never anticipated that they would be that angry.

She touched her face. It was stinging a little, but it was nothing like the real punches she’d been on the receiving end of before. She knew it wasn’t right what she did, but damn it, neither was what her parents did, and were still doing!

She looked at her bag, still fully packed, sitting innocently on the rug. It would stay packed, she decided, there was no reason to unpack when she left for school again in a few days.

Looking around her room, she couldn’t recognize a single thing that truly represented her. Pink and red walls, a big makeup table she didn’t want, a closet filled with clothing that made her feel like she was suffocating. She looked at the dresses, the makeup and shoes that totally didn’t fit her anymore. The clothing she felt she’d grown out of years ago, yet still had to wear, and could feel noting except for utterly deep sadness and overboiling rage.

The room was nothing like she wanted. She hated it, and hadn’t even realized it until now. With determination, she entered her trunk, an entered her workshop to retrieve a few tools, some paint and a mouth mask.

She put all the clothes she didn’t want in a big bag, along with the makeup and pictures of her in faked happiness and got a great amount of pleasure by smashing them, one by one. Next went the posters on the walls, _LIES, LIES, LIES_. She tore them sloppily, but it did nothing to dampen the utter satisfaction she got by tearing them down. The bed sheets had to go to, she decided, the pink bedding wouldn’t do so great with the new color the walls were going to be.

When she finished, she threw the bag out of the window, knowing that no one would see it anyways. She tore down she makeup table, the wood cracking beneath the hammer she was using to tear it off the wall. The pieces followed the bag out of the window.

She pulled her bed to the middle of the room using magic, and did the same with the closet and her desk. She put her face mask on, and pulled out the deep purple paint.

An hour later, she was satisfied. The walls purple, posters of rock bands and science fairs on her walls, her closet filled with her own clothing (pieces that she wouldn’t miss and were easily replaced) and a massive bookshelf, filled to the brim with books three rows thick (ones she didn’t really need anymore but still kept for the heck of it, right where her makeup table used to be.

She was content with the way it was looking in her room now. It was so, totally _her_ … but one last thing was missing. She took out a spray can of black paint, and moved to the last empty wall of the room.

She took her belongings and threw the can over her shoulder, right before climbing out the window. Passing the trash she’d thrown out of her window, she stopped. With a smirk, she threw an incendio at the pile, and walked into the forest. There was no going back now.

A few minutes later, the Potters ran outside to the source of the smoke, and extinguished the fire. Later on, they realized what it was, right when they entered Jennifer’s room to discuss her punishment.

All they could do was stare wordlessly at the writing on the wall.

_‘Now I’ve started, you can’t stop me’_


	3. Back to School

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't own anything.  
> All rights belong to J. K. Rowling.

On the day of september 31st Jay found herself standing on the train platform, waiting to board the giant red steam train. For the past few days she’d been staying in the muggle world, having disappeared from the Wizarding World once again. It wasn’t hard to keep herself from being found, even if there were loads of people looking for her. She’d seen them looking for her when she was in Diagon Ally to buy her school supplies. No one had noticed her though, and she’d simply ducked her head a bit more to hide under her hood.

Now though, she could see her parents and Charlie accompanied by -of course- Remus and Sirius out of the corner of her eyes. Charlie had casted her a few stares, but if it were because she was wearing a hood or if her suspected it was her, she didn’t know. She knew Remus was sure it was her, as he csted one look at her and subtlety gave her a small nod with a half-smile.

She could appreciate that from him, and she knew he realized that their treatment of her wasn’t good and he didn’t really agree with her parents. But unfortunately, his loyalty to her parents won out most of the time and he let the treatment go on.

The person in front of her finally made it in the train, and she was able to make it in the train herself. She began looking for an empty coupe, hoping to get a few more hours of peace before reaching the school. After a bit of searching, she found one in the first train wagon and settled down. She pulled a book out of her pocket and started reading.

Her peace didn’t last long though, since after only a few minutes of peace her coupe door opened. She lifted her head to tell the person to find another coupe to sit in, but the words died in her throat before she spoke them.

“Finally, I thought I was never going to find you!” A happy voice spoke. Neville was the one standing in the doorway with a big smile on his face.

“Neville! Oh dear Merlin I’ve missed you!” Jay spoke, rising to give her best friend a hug.

Neville returned the hug, chuckling a bit. “So have I, and lady, where have you been? About half the auror department was turned upside down when you ‘disappeared’.” Neville said, a cheeky grin on his face as he releases his friend.

“Now that, that’s a bit of a story.” Jay replied finding her way back to her seat. “Then again, we’ve got a few hours to kill don’t we?”

“Indeed we do. And girl, when I heard that you were gone, all I thought to myself was, ‘Damn, I wish she’d taken me with her!’. My gran didn’t think it was that funny though.” They both laugh. “These are the type of stunts I expected from you, y’know.”

Jay turns to him with a confused look. “You know, like, going to parties, playing pranks, and not listening to what anyone has to say about it either. It suits you better as the ideal princess. And you look a lot happier now as I’ve ever seen you.”

“Yeah. It felt really good to be free and be myself. Though the fallout I have with my parents was quite the ordeal.”

“You had a fallout?” Nev asks, leaning a bit forward. “How bad was it?”

“Bad. Really bad. My mom and I had a bit of a screaming match -which I won by the way- and moral of the story was that if they want to parent me, they frist have to act like parents to me. When I told them what I thought of their parenting, my mom smacked me across the face. They were really angry with me for taking off, which I can understand. But did they really expect me to stay indoors for and entire two months plus? So then I left the room and went to my bedroom. You know how much I have my bedroom right?” Neville nodded, a bit silent at what his friend was telling him. “Well… I gave it a slight remodeling and set fire to the things I didn’t want and smashed pretty much all of my pictures. Then I left through the window and stayed in an inn for the past few days.”

“Holy… wow you’ve definitely got some problems then.” Was all Neville could say.

“Yeah. But I think we both knew it was long in the making. I just stopped caring for right now. It’s ust a big mess between me and the rest of the fam.”

“Are you okay? I mean… I couldn’t have been easy to do that. To leave that place.”

Jay thought for a moment, “Actually, it was scarily easy, and I realized that I didn’t miss it in the slightest… which is really conserving now that I think of it.” She’s looking a bit unsure now, a sorrow expression on her face and her eyes casted down at the floor. “I just… I don’t even know if I want to go back at all. I was just so, so happy when I was away. And it was so nice to be myself. I think that scares me the most, to be honest. The fact that I’m holding on to something that has been broken for years… and I can live without it just fine, I’ve discovered now.” She lifts her head and Neville has never before seen her so… small, vulnerable. “I don’t want to go back to the way it was before. I don’t want to live that lie anymore, knowing fully well that it will hurt the others. Does that… make me selfish? A bad person?”

Neville is on his feet in a split second, and hugs the girl close. “No, never. You’re allowed to do what makes you happy, and they don’t care for that. It doesn’t make you selfish, it makes you human Jay. Everyone wants to be happy, and that life you had before? If you can even call that a life, it just doesn’t it you anymore. And from how you’re telling it, I don’t think it ever has, you just stopped lying to yourself. And no one but you gets to decide how you are happy, the only person that can decide that is you. And in a way, I’m happy that you’re admitting to yourself that you’re miserable there, because now, you can change it.”

Jay is crying now, tears slowly dripping down her face. “Thank you.” Is all she can say to her friend, one of the only people to have ever understood her. The person that is now holding her in a tight embrace, trying to smooth her.

“For what?” Neville asks, a bit of confusing present in his voice.

“Just… for everything. Being my friend, helping me out and just being here for me.” Jay replies, not even having to think about it for a heartbeat.

Neville looks down at the girl in his arms and rests his head on hers. “You don’t have to thank me for that, that’s what friends do. And I care if you’re happy or not.”

They sit like that for a bit, not saying anything but not ready to let go of one another just yet. Eventually they let each other lose and Neville moves Jay until her head is sitting in his lap. He tells her about his vacation, about how his grandmother was so proud of his grades, how he found a new type of plant to grow in his greenhouse and how he laughed when he got Jay’s card from Romania, with a picture of her wearing a fake mustache and a tablecloth as cape, while standing in a hero pose on a cart pulled by a donkey. What was happening when that photo was taken was a mystery to him.

Slowly Jay’s smile returned to her face, and she laughed as Nev told her how he once again lost his toad, only to find it in his underwear drawer.

A few hours later, they arrived at Hogwarts. All the way to school they were laughing and making bad jokes, all the while to the school trying to trip each other. They hadn’t forgotten about that morning, but in the light of the moment, both couldn’t care less.


	4. Well, That Didn't Go As Planned

The day the first lessons began Jay was as usual the one of the first students in the great hall. Looking up to the teacher’s table at the head of the hall, she was relieved to see only Professors Flitwick and Snape. Her father and Sirius wouldn’t arrive until the second week of school at least, and her mother was apparently not up yet. She was once again an assistant Charms teacher for the upper years, and Jay wouldn’t have her in class until her fifth year.

It was also a relieve to see that her Head of House wasn’t present, and neither was the Headmaster. There was nothing to worry about now. He knew that they were going to keep an even closer eye on her now, with the entire disappearing act she pulled. Twice.

She inwardly winced. She didn’t want to think about it, didn’t want to deal with the problems that would soon show their ugly heads. It was going to be a had time the coming weeks. She hated the fact that in a way they were rightfully angry with her. She ran away with only leaving a note behind – but that didn’t justify what they pulled on her. If anything, it justified her actions. And this time, she wouldn’t back down. Even if it meant hell for her.

She settled at the Gryffindor table, her overflowing backpack in the seat next to her. She pulled out a rather large tomb and put some eggs and toast no her plate. The book was a charms book from Greece, and not in English. She saw professor Flitwick look at her, and gave him a smile and a nod. She pulled her book close to her and took a bite of her toast.

A bit later the table began to fill up with cranky teenagers and the near complete silence in the hall was getting louder the more students filled the room. It wasn’t long until Neville joined her at the table as per usual. She knew that Neville wasn’t the most talkative person in the morning, yet she still put her book away as Neville ate in silence while listening some more to the thing Jay had learned over the summer holidays.

“Here’s your timetables,” A boy Jay didn’t recognize dropped several pieces of parchment on the table and made his way down to the other students on her right.

Jay and Neville both looked confused. “Who was that? I thought the head boy was supposed to give the time tables out?” Jay nodded, “Yeah. At least, that’s what I thought… where is he anyway?” Both Neville and Jay look around, trying to spot the redhead somewhere.

“Isn’t he usually one of the first in the great hall?” He asked, “I mean, you’re normally the one that’s up the first in the morning, have you seen him?”

“No, I haven’t seen him since waiting for the train.” She looked a bit thoughtful, her brow furrowed while trying to remember if she’d seen him after that.

“Last I saw him was yesterday too, though that was while leading the new first years to the dormitories. Do you think something’s wrong?”

“Come on Neville. He probably overslept or got sick or something. It’s the first day, what could go wrong?”

“Don’t, - you just jinxed it. You know that right?” Nev pressed his lips together, trying to keep from saying more.

“Mate, have a bit of faith, would you? Our luck isn’t _that_ bad.”

“Last. Famous. Words.”

“Don’t be so pessimistic! Honestly, you’d think that I would be the one to complain-”

“Miss Potter, if you could follow me.” Jay looked behind herself, only to come to face with her Head of House and Percy Weasley. Professor McGonagall was looking at her with pursed lips and a disappointed look on her face. She turns back to face Nev, who comments, “Told you so,” And leaves it at that.

“Now Miss Potter.” The other students sitting at the table are listening now, the hall’s sound level has dropped a noticeable few decibels.

“Certainly. Let me grab my bag first.” She pushes her book in her overflowing bag, the contents of which raise the Professor’s eyebrows. Jay raises her own eyebrow, and with it telling Percy to mind his own business and daring the Professor to say something about the contents of her bag.

They lead her out of the hall, McGonagall in front of her and Percy behind her. Why they are walking like that is a mystery to her. Do they think she’s going to run? Why? And besides, what would that accomplish?

Eventually they stop in front of the entrance of the headmaster’s office and McGonagall gives the password. When they enter the room, Jay has a dark suspicion that this isn’t going to end well. She can see both her parents, several teachers, two unknown men and the headmaster. Oh joy.

“Miss Potter, if you could take a seat,” The headmaster waives his had at a chair in the middle of the room, every other chair is pointed in the direction of her chair and on a slightly higher part of the floor. Several people are standing. She knows what they are doing, it’s just a simple intimidation act.

“I’d rather stand. Thank you.” She replies, her tone flat as she drops her bag to the floor.

“Please, I must insist,” The man smiles at her, one that is supposed to be friendly, but she know that the Headmaster is a shark behind the grandfatherly appearance. She looks at them for a second, and knows that she has no choice but to sit down. She picks up her bag and moves to the chair, only to walk past it and sit on a desk near another entrance.

The Headmaster is definitely disappointed that the plan failed, and he isn’t the only one.

“He meant on the chair you brat.” One of the men she doesn’t know speaks up. Was he an auror? He was wearing the right kind of robes…

“He said sit down, he didn’t specify where,” She answers, her tone as flat as she can manage it. She won’t play their games. She won’t. they aren’t worth her attention and if they demand it, then she’ll do so on her own terms.

The man turns a nasty shade of red. “Now listen here you-”

“That will be enough, LaRoush,” The Headmaster interrupts, “We’re here to help her, not call her names.”

The man -LaRoush- looks away, embarrassed at being corrected. Only…

“Help me?” The indigent tone slips out, and a frown made its way to her face, “What would I need help with? My grades are fine-”

“That isn’t what we mean by that, Miss Potter.” McGonagall looks straight at her.

The frown deepens, “Then what-?”

“May we see your bag, Miss Potter?” The Headmaster asks in a kind tone.

“Why? And no, you may not.” She moves her bag so that it’s next to her on the desk.

“Kid, just let us check the bag.” LaRoush says. “We all know what you’re doing, and there is no denying it,”

“Doing what?” She looks at her parents, who have been silent the entire time. “What are you on about?”

“Jennifer, just let them look in you bag,” her father tells her, “Whatever is in there, we won’t blame you. We’ll still love you no matter-”

“Back up a little there. What is this about and what do you think you’ll find in my bag besides books?” Jay asks. She’s getting really angry now.

“We know that there is something not right Jennifer, we know that you’re practicing the dark arts.” Her mother speaks softly. She looks at her mother, who still won’t make eye contact with her, like she’s ashamed. She should be, even if she should be ashamed for entirely different reasons that she actually is.

“Dark arts?” Jay asks, completely lost at the delusional logic that her family is once again displaying. “And how have you reached that amazing conclusion?” she growls out.

Lily finally looks up at her, and looks her straight in the eyes, “Because of your behavior! Your standing with us, the way you dress-”

“There is nothing wrong with dressing the way I-”

“And your grades, how can you be better than Charlie? He’s got years of training behind him! And-”

“Are you really this delusional?!”

“And that! Thinking everything is wrong with the rest of the world but thinking you can do nothing wrong!”

Jay looks a bit speechless for a moment, and she tries to contain her anger. “That’s because I’m right and you’re wrong. I’ve always dressed this way, only I changed it for you, to gain your acceptance. My grades are so high because when you _left me alone for months at a time_ reading kept me sane. I study my arse off each and every day because I know - _know‑_ one of these days something bad will happen and I refuse to be the damsel in distress,” She takes a deep breath, keeping her voice the same calm manner when she has to deal with rich people that utterly disgust her, “My attitude toward you is because you’ve done nothing to earn my love, for years you’ve neglected me and now I’m suddenly important again? Don’t make me laugh.”

Lily now has tears streaming down her face again, but what right does she have to cry? If anyone has the right to cry, I’d be her.

“Go ahead. Take a look in the bag.” She picks her bag off the table and offers it to the other auror, who silently takes it from her.

“May I ask your name?” Jay asks the auror.

 

“Auror Andrews.” He answers shortly. Jay nods.

“Nice to meet you.”

Andrews looks in the bag and takes the books out one by one. There’s all of her schoolbooks, a few magazines of potions and charms, a muggle fantasy novel and eight or nine literature books. They all pile up on the table.

“Defence books, magazines from a well-known potions master that specializes in healing potions, I have no idea what Percy Jackson is,”

“It’s popular in the muggle world now. Amongst teenagers.” Jay explains.

The man nods and continues his search. “N.E.W.T. level Defense and Charms books, and a few pots of ink with quills. Three notebooks,” He holds up the notebooks to her, “May I?”

“Go ahead,” She says, not taking her eyes off her parents.

“Drawings, class notes, and-” He stops for a moment, and his mouth drops.

Jay smirks, she knows exactly what is in that notebook. It’s her new spells and ideas notebook. There is not too much in it, but with all her extremely detailed calculations, it must look impressive.

“Did- did you make these?” He asks, eyes wide open.

“Well, they do have my name on them, don’t they?” She knows that she’s smug about it, but damn it, she’s earned it!

“These… These are amazing! Are you planning on publishing these?!”

James looks uncomfortable now, “What are you talking about? Give me that,” He makes a grab for the notebook, but with Jay’s fast “No.” Andrews holds it out of his reach.

“You’re not allowed to look at them, father.” She narrows her eyes at him.

James looks both confused and angry. “What do you mean, I can’t look at them?! I’m your father!” He nearly shouts, which causes Jay to flinch back.

“I, you’re not allowed because I’m afraid you’ll either claim I stole them, or claim them for yourself. They’re mine and I get to decide what happens to them.” She says in a small voice. She didn’t like it when her father raised her voice at her, and it didn’t happen often. But when it did, they usually left her for longer. “You don’t have the right to look through my things when I don’t give you permission. Like all of my other belongings.”

LaRoush hooks in on that, “What do you mean, Miss Potter?”

“Last year, they looked through my trunk and bags when they thought I wasn’t looking. They did so many times, and started after the Christmas holidays.”

The man looks speechless for a moment, and he turns to the others in the room. “Is this true?”

McGonagall is the one to answer, “We did, but we did it because we thought she was practicing magic against the law.”

As if that makes it any better. It’s still against the law to do that. And she’d given them no right.

The aurors look at each other for a moment before making a decision without even having to say a single word to one another.

Auror Andrews turns to her, “Miss Potter, would you come with us to the Ministry? We’d like to ask you some more questions.”

“About what?! She’s obviously hiding something! You can’t let her just continue on like this!” Lily shrieks.

“Surely, this isn’t so serious that it requires further investigation, gentlemen?” Dumbledore tries, but they are both ignored in favor of Jay.

“I’ll go with you, but wouldn’t I need an adult present?” She remembers reading about that in the lawbook, but it was a long time ago.

“That is correct Miss Potter. Do you have anyone you would like to take with you?” Andrews asks her.

She looks around the room. Anyone in it immediately falls off. They wouldn’t do what would be best for her, and they are loyal to Dumbledore, who seems hellbent on making her the bad guy -girl-.

“That will be a problem. I don’t really have any adult that I trust enough right now.”

The aurors look at her, at each other and then back to her. “If you will come with us then?” She picks up her bag and puts the books back in it. She’s lead to the floo by LaRoush while Andrews tries to calm down the people in the room after her last spoken words.

“Where are you taking my daughter?! I demand that I go with her!” It’s the last thing she hears before the floo takes her away, and when they reach the Ministry, she lands gracefully on her feet.

LaRoush looks at her, and sees her with a bowed head, trying to hide her tears. “Are you okay kid?” He asks, and places a hand on her shoulder.

The moment after, she bursts into tears.


	5. An Interview

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I own nothing.   
> All rights belong to J. K. Rowling.

Jennifer sat in the tiny interrogation room the auror had left her in. The auror in front of her, whose name she didn’t know, was still looking at her with pity on his face. She lifted her hand, holding a tissue and wiped her angry red and swollen eyes once more. Even though she wasn’t crying anymore, her vision was still a little blurry and she felt the defeat of the situation pressuring her chest as if there was a massive weight on it. She knew things were about to reach the worst they had ever reached. There were only a few possibilities of what would happen next, the most obvious ones being either sent back to her parents or removed from them.

Either way, she was screwed.

Things would never be the same, but did she want them to be? There was a lot of commotion when she was brought in, and it would surely catch the eyes of reporters. If the went back to her parents, there would be hell to pay for that.

If.

If she went back. Jay took a shuddering breath. Where would she go otherwise? An orphanage? Temporary home? There were a lot of things to keep in mind, after all, some of the unconvicted Death Eaters would love to get their hands on her. She felt the pressure climb to her throat at the mere thought of that happening.

The door opened and this time it wasn’t a auror stepping through. It was Madam Bones. Holy shit. How far did this go already, if one of the highest forms of authority in the whole of Magical Brittan showed up for it?

“Good afternoon Miss Potter, auror Jonas.” Madam Bones said, while looking her up and down.

She must look like a right mess, and there was nothing she could do about that right now. So, she cleared her voice and greeted the woman. “Good afternoon, Madam Bones.” She almost winced at how terribly scratchy her voice sounds.

“It was quite the commotion, this morning, when first Albus came, informing the aurors of the, supposed ‘less than legal actions’ you would be practicing, and how ‘it would be a danger to not address the girl before she did any further damage to herself’.” Jay looked at the table, not making eye contact with neither the auror nor Madam Bones. Bones took a seat at the table and pulled a folder towards herself. “Of course, we never suspected that we would be looking at the other Potters, and not you for the ‘less than legal actions’, or rather the lack of actions.

Jay kept silent, hoping that the floor would swallow her up right now out of sheer embarrassment. Did they think she needed adult supervision? She’d been doing fine on her own, only lonely. But when she voiced this to the auror, all she got was a frown on his face and another note in his book.

Madam Bones sighed deeply, before opening the folder. “Miss Potter, how long have your parents been leaving you, all on your own, for months at a time?” She asked in a soft tone, probably to help her relax a little. It didn’t work.

“Not for too long.”

“And how long was that?” Madam Bones insisted, turning her head sideways, hoping to catch the girl’s eye for even a second.

“A, uh, a few years.” Jay replied, lifting her head a little, but still keeping her eyes mostly to the table.

Madam Bones leaned forwards, folding her hands on the table. “Miss Potter, from outside sources, we’ve learned that it’s been longer than that. We’ve been informed that this has been happening since you were five years old.”

Jennifer snapped her eyes upward, wondering who talked. She certainly didn’t. Even if it wasn’t right what her parents did, the Wizarding World needed their ‘Chosen Family’. She couldn’t break that image. She understood that and apparently, there was someone that didn’t agree with her vision on it.

Madam Bones studied the girl in front of her for a second, wondering how they could all have been so blind. She saw this girl quite often, as her family was invited to lots of parties and gala’s she had to attend as well. Looking back, it was obvious that there was something going on in the Potter family. The girl was anti-social, unlike the other children in attendance, and highly uncomfortable in the busy halls. And that was when she was seen at all. The girl tended to disappear after the arrival and show up only when needed or when she was to leave with her parents and brother.

“I’ve been in conversation with a part of the Wizengamot. Regarding your special situation,” Jay almost snorted at that, “It has been decided that, for your safety, you will be staying with one of your godfathers while the trial runs-”

“Wait, godfathers? I only have one godfather, and he was just as bad as my parents when it comes to my care.” She was really confused right now, why remove her from her parents, when she would be placed in a home that was just as empty as her parent’s home? After all, both Remus and Sirius often joined the trips.

“Your custody will, temporarily, be given to your second godfather, Severus Snape. Until a more long-term solution is found.”

Well, shit.


	6. Time For A Change

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guy! So I'm finally not busy with school, so I could FINALLY write another chapter! I hope you enjoy.
> 
> I don't own anything. All rights belong to J. K. Rowling

The aurors were stunned as they found piles upon piles of evidence pointing toward the severe neglect the Potters had bestowed their daughter. Reports from her previous schools, concerned neighbors, even the helper at the grocery store had expressed their concern since she was always alone. But there was always something that dismissed the reports that were made, such as ‘she’s always on time at school and looks well taken care of’ or ‘the parents must be busy working’. No one ever properly checked. Some of the aurors had even met the girl, and upon first sight there appeared to be nothing wrong.

  
Until one looked a bit closer.

  
The antisocial behavior, acting way past her age, the perfect grammar, it all pointed to being isolated from being separated from others her age. Now that they knew what they were looking for, there was an unending amount of proof of this girl’s mistreating.

  
Graduated pre-school at age of 8, never went back. When her parents were asked how old she was when she graduated, they both answered 11. They couldn’t name a single hobby the girl would supposedly have, save for playing the violin, which the girl claimed to have played for perhaps a few months when she was little.

  
It was public knowledge that the boy-who-lived has been receiving training since he was five years old. It became apparent that when interrogating the house elves that the girl had always remained home, and her care was placed in their hands.

  
It was a miracle that the girl had managed to survive for this long. Her rebellious act that put the aurors department upside-down was a lot easier to explain now. The girl had never had any boundaries. That was only for when her parents were home. The girl had repeatedly been spotted in an abandoned part of town over the years, there were people that had spotted her in the dead of the night outside, kilometers away from her home. The aurors didn’t know what to make of the girl. A perfect average student, both at her pre-school and Hogwarts, without any parental supervision for nine months a year at minimum. Only to then be made out as a dark witch on the grounds of being intelligent. It was repulsive.  
It was quickly decided that the custody of the girl would have to, at least temporarily, be given to someone else. Sadly enough, when the Potters were faced with the choice to either fight for custody, or keep the whole ordeal quiet, the demands for their daughter died down entirely to fast. They didn’t even want to fight. When the girl was informed of this, she seemed saddened, but not surprised. Like she was hoping it to not be true but knowing that it was false hope.

  
Severus Snape was called in, much to the court’s surprise, as the only suitable and available guardian for the young girl. The teachers of Hogwarts had warned that the man and the girl didn’t mix in the slightest, yet they didn’t have another option so soon. When Miss Potter was informed of the identity of her new temporary guardian, a deep sneer drowned on her face.

  
She looked at the aurors in front of her, “Why? Just… Just why?” she asked them.  
“Why what?”

  
“…” Her face blanked, and she spoke in the most deadpan voice she could muster. “Why does life hate me this much?”

  
“Uh,” Both aurors didn’t know how to reply to that. They looked at each other, hoping the other had a response at the ready.

  
“I hate everything.” She said, glaring a hole in the wall. “I mean, life seems to hate me, it’s only fair.”

  
``````````````````````````````````````````````````

  
A few day later Jay was sitting outside on the grass. The past few days hadn’t been as horrible as she’d thought. Severus – as he allowed her to call him in private – hadn’t been as horrible as she’d thought he’d be. It was actually pretty normal, and how weird that was to think about. Turns out he actually knew a bit about parenting and wasn’t as strict as she expected him to be. The new rules had been a bit annoying, sure, but he wasn’t a pain in the ass most of the time. Her parents were given the order to leave her alone for now, so she could settle in a little, even if she was still at school. Most evenings she spent doing homework and extra research in Severus’ quarters. The new rules for her, namely no more studying after 9, did demand she changed her schedule up a bit, but the man still didn’t know about her midnight reading or escapades in the RoR. If she had a say in it, it would stay that way too, there were just some things that she wasn’t willing to share.

  
One thing that did change, was Draco Malfoy. Since the start of the year the boy hadn’t been pestering her as much as last year, and it seemed more forced. Now that she was officially Severus’ charge, he quit it all together. She didn’t know why, but she caught the boy looking her way more than once.

  
Unfortunately, news of her ‘arrest’ had come out, on top of half the Slytherins suddenly being indifferent or even nice to her, well…

  
“Hey Potter! How long until they finally put you in the slammer?” She looked up to see a boy with messy brown hair look down at her with a sneer. A Gryffindor, several yeas older than her, stood with is chest puffed out ridiculously while his friends laughed.

  
She looked sideways to Neville, “I’m not even going to bother giving a response to such an absolute idiot.” She said with a snort.

  
“Whachu say little brat!?” The boy took a few steps forward as his friends stopped laughing.

  
“I said you’re an idiot, why dignify you with a response?”

  
“Shut up you baby Death Eater!” The conversations around them started to die down as more people started to notice the possibility of a fight breaking out.

  
“Daww, he’s adorable! He honestly thinks that I’m scared of him!” She and Neville share a laugh, both knowing she could have the boy one his knees in under a second.

  
“Yeah, but he isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, don’t take it personally. How may O.W.L.S. did he get? Four or something?” Neville commented, looking the picture of unimpressed.  
That was a bit to much payback. The boy came at them, obviously aiming to punch them.

  
He had no idea how to fight with his hands apparently, it was so bad the hardest part about the ‘fight’ was not bursting out laughing at how easy it was to dodge the punches the kid threw.  
“Jay, what page did we need to read for Charms?” Neville casually asked, not even paying attention to the fight.

  
“Pages two till’ fourteen and the first page of chapter two.” She wasn’t even out of breath while the boy looked ready to drop. He hadn’t hit her a single time.

  
“And what is going on here exactly?!” The high voice of McGonagall rang out over the murmuring of the crowd that had formed around them.

  
Ah fuck.


	7. How To Deal With Idiot Adults, A Manual By Severus Snape

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! Sorry for the long wait :( In return I made an extra long chapter :D Hope you enjoy <3
> 
> I don't own anything. All rights belong to J. K. Rowling.

Jennifer sat at her desk in the detention hall. She kept writing the same sentence, over and over again. “I will not get into fights.” It read. She’d been at it for almost an hour now, and her brow furrowed even further as her hand began to cramp. She was toning out most of the continues prattling of the teacher she was serving detention with. Severus had been less than impressed with her for fighting, although there was a glint of… something else, something positive, when the ‘fight’ was recalled. It confused her, what she’d seen in his face, but what was even stranger was that Malfoy had been staring at her with no small amount of awe, only to turn away when he realized his staring was seen by her.

  
“…And then I defeated the troll by using an immobilus spell on it!” Lockhart dramatically finished.

  
She looked at the man with a deadpan look and said, “But I thought the skin of trolls were to thick for any magic to take hold on it? The only way you could have immobilized it, would be by spelling the floor.”

  
The man flushed bright red, “Of course- Of course, that is what I meant by that! I- I spelled the floor with a delic planet terra spell.”

  
“Delictum planeta terra. And those are not strong enough to hold something like a fully-grown mountain troll. An al'ard alssayila, also known as a liquid ground spell would work much better, simply due to the fact that the floor will not rise up, but collapse in on itself, giving it the additional strength of the earth around it before hardening. On top of that, it works with any type of flooring and only activates when pressure is added to the spelled piece of flooring.”

  
She went back to her piece of parchment, noting it almost full. She grabbed a new piece and began writing again.

  
Lockhart needed a few seconds to find his voice again, which was a blessing for Jay since the man really couldn’t keep his mouth shut for a single moment. “How do you know these things, my dear girl?”

  
“I read.” She replied, not looking up from her parchment.

  
“Ah, well. You know, I’ve heard lots of things about you, top of your classes, sister of the boy who lived…” He began con.

  
“Yes, and?” She really wished the mad would beat around the bush so much, there were still things she wanted to do tonight, and listening to this idiot trying to appeal to her ego was not on her planning.

  
“There have been some issues with the uh…”

  
“Come… come here… I want to tear you apart… I want to rip you open… I want to kill you…”

  
Jay looked up in alarm, “What was that?”

  
Lockhart looked confused, “What was what?”

  
“That, that voice…” She was now looking frantically around the classroom, having gotten up from her chair.

  
“What are you talking about Jennifer? Did you fall asleep for a little bit? Dear me! Look at the time, we’ve almost been here for four hours! Time just flew by, didn’t it?”

  
“What? No, we’ve only been here for…” She looked at the clock and realized he was right.

  
“I will tear you open…”

  
“There it is again!” She cried, looking around for the source of the voice.

  
“There is what again?” Lockhart was now looking around to, while casting a few worried looks at his student.

  
“The voice! Can you not hear it?”

  
“I don’t hear anything…”

  
She took a few shaky breaths, trying to calm herself.

  
“All right, come on, let’s get you back to the Gryffindor common room.”

  
Jay immediately agreed. She could feel in her bones something was very wrong here, there were goosebumps on her arms and sweat broke out on her forehead while her face was washed of all color.

  
She practically flew through the hallways, taking no chances with stopping for a breather. She was almost there when she heard the soft, hissing whisper of the voice once more.  
“I want to kill you… rip you apart…”

  
She quickened her pace even more so, hoping that she made it to the common room before-

  
She rounded a corner and immediately back-tracked trying to quiet her breathing that was no more then panicked gasps at this point. As she tried to keep as quiet as possible she listened for any form of noise. There was none. Not even the voice that sent chills down het spine and made her tense up out of reflex. It was dead silent in the hallway and once Jay collected her thoughts she pulled out a piece of parchment out of het pocket. It was a piece of her History of Magic essay, but that didn’t matter now. She transfigured it in a mirror shard, which cut her hand slightly, but she didn’t pay attention to the thin line of blood now running down her hand.

  
Carefully, she held the mirror shard up and looked around the corner with it. What she saw was both nearly-headless Hank and Filch’ cat immobile, but nothing else. It seemed that she’d just missed whomever did this. Tentatively she looked around the corner. Seeing no one once more, she rounded the corner fully and moved closer to the bodies. She couldn’t tell if the cat were dead or not, and Hank wasn’t moving even the slightest bit save for slowly turning in a way that probably out of his control.

  
It was then that she read what was written in blood on the wall behind the two.

  
“The Chamber of Secrets has been opened.

  
Enemies of the heir… beware”

  
It was written… in blood…  
Eyes widening on the realization that it was indeed blood, she gasped and turned to run, only to run into Filch.

  
“What are you doing in the hallway at this hour-?” Filch broke off as he saw what was behind her. “You… what have you done?!” Filch ran over to his cat, checking if it were still alive. When he found no pulse, his head snapped back to Jay, who was still breathing erratically and was only able to mutter out a weak “what?” before she was grabbed by the arm and led to the headmaster’s office.

  
Standing on the stairs waiting for the headmaster to open de door for them, Jay became aware of the blood slowly dibbling down her hand. She’d dropped the mirror shard when Filch grabbed her arm. She looked at her hand and saw the deep lines on her hand from where she’d clutched onto the shard for dear life. She stared at the blood and all tension fled her body for the moment. It was as if she was being held underwater, all noise around her dampened as if she was watching a particularly bad quality movie.

  
They were moving again, and then Filch was yelling and more people came who also yelled at her and demanded answers. Tears were now rolling down her face, the trick that didn’t work on her mere months ago, with her parents and the auror’s did work now, and soon she was overwhelmed. Black spots entered her view of vision and she was dully aware of her back hitting the wall and then she was on the floor.

  
Next thing she knew Severus was in front of her, looking over his shoulder and speaking in the deep voice that Jay knew was his. He wasn’t yelling. He wasn’t making angry gestures and he had his hand loosely on her shoulder, in a way that she could shrug it off if she wanted. She became aware that he was talking to her, and she heard sharp gasps mixed in with sobs. It took her a moment to realise that she was the one making those noises and her breath hitched for a moment when she tried to stop.

  
“-on me, try to copy my breathing. You’re safe here…” Was the first thing she heard when the world regained a bit of the sound it was missing. “Focus on your breathing, try take deep breaths,” He instructed and yeah, that sounded like a good plan since it made her feel like there was actually enough air in the room. Slowly she calmed down and the brick in her throat lifted bit by bit and curled in on herself, trying to hide behind Severus.

  
“Can you hear me, Jennifer?”

  
She looked back up at Severus and it took her a moment process what he said. She nodded, not trusting her voice to deliver the message with the figurative brick still present in her throat.

  
“Let me at the little pest!” She heard from her right and her breath hitched again, a few fresh tears dripping from her eyes without her permission, but she couldn’t seem to stop them.

  
“You will do nothing of the sort.” Severus spoke with a sneer, his voice rippled with obvious disgust for the man, “I’ll be taking her to my private rooms now, where I will tend to her hand. After that we can discuss the happenings of tonight.” He moved his hand from her shoulder to her elbow, coaxing her into getting up yet not forcing her. Her legs were shaking and when she looked around the room she wanted to disappear in Severus’ robes completely. They were all staring at her. At least they were quiet now.  
“Severus, we need to question her about what she’s done. Her behavior is unacceptable.” Headmaster Dumbledore argued.

  
Severus leveled Dumbledore with a glare, “The only despicable thing that happened with this child was that all of you yelled an already panicked child into having a panic attack. Move.” Severus moved forward, and it seemed the Headmaster didn’t know what to say, since he let them both reach the floo without difficulties. Jay kept her head down and tried to look as small as possible.

  
When in Severus’ private rooms she was seated on the comfortable couch and instructed to stay there. She obeyed, still having said no words.

  
Severus soon returned with a chair, medical kit -which was almost standard in every wizarding home- and a big, rater flat bowl. He set the chair in front of her and asked for her hand. The blood on it was now drying to a nasty looking brownish color and Severus gently cleaned it off with a rag and some water.

  
“Are you ready to talk about what happened?” He asked her softly, as he handled her hand with a gentleness she didn’t think him capable of.

  
“I don’t know what happened.” Her voice was raspy and sounded odd with her runny nose. “I- I didn’t hurt Filch’ cat. Nor paint the blood on the wall.” Please. Please believe me.  
“Why don’t you tell me how you came across it?” He moved her hand into the bowl now and pulled the cork out of the potion flask.

  
“I was in detention, and there-” she hisses, the potion is cleaning her hand, she knows, but it’s hardly a pleasant experience, “There was a voice.”

  
“A voice?” He sounds a bit skeptical, raising an eyebrow at her.

  
She frowns, “Yes, but only I could hear it. Professor Lockhart couldn’t. it really freaked me out and shortly after I heard it Professor Lockhart sent be back to the common room.”  
“Leave your hand in this for a minute.” He interrupts. She takes the bowl from him and continues.

  
“As I walked I began hearing it more frequently, and then I stumbled upon the…” She looks away and shrinks back a little, “I backtracked around the corner and transfigured a piece of parchment into a mirror, or at least, I tried to. It ended up being a shard.” She explained after his questioning look. “I used it to look around the corner, to make sure I was alone. When I was sure I was I went back around the corner and stared at the wall for a bit. When I realized it was written in blood, I turned around and ran. Straight into Filch.”

  
“And?”

  
“And. Then I was in the Headmasters office. Yelling. Then you were there.” Severus took her hand out of the bowl and casted an episky on it. The skin knit back together, no mark left behind.

  
“I believe you.”

 

She looked up, hope in her eyes despite of them being bloodshot with slightly dilated pupils.

  
“And we’re going to have to talk about what happened once you entered the Headmaster’s office. I’ve put that conversation off for too long now.” He looked at her, still holding her hand. “Are you aware of the consequences of child neglect, especially on such a long term as you?”

  
“Yes.” She took her hand back and wrapped her arm around her middle. “Social difficulties, social anxiety, stunted brain development, stunted emotional growth, possible physical problems such as being more vulnerable to disease, self esteem issues, depression, eating disorders, more potent towards criminal behavior, more potent to addiction, etcetera.” She can’t look at him now, knowing she shows more than a few of those and showed signs of social anxiety today. Though she’d never had a panic attack before, she never handled multiple people being loud towards her very well.

  
Severus was impressed with her knowledge on the subject. She’d definitely shown that she knew what he was talking about, and hopefully this would help her accept help with the recovery from the deep emotional scars that were probably caused by her abuse.

  
“I have looked into some people that might be able to help you. To talk to, about your previous housing.” He waited for a minute but received no answer. “I will not force you to go but know that those options are more than available for when you think you are ready.”

  
“You want me to go to a mind healer?” She asked bitterly, knowing how society looked down upon such treatments.

  
“No.”

  
She looked at Severus, her brow furrowing with confusion. “No?”

  
“No. I want you to talk to a psychiatrist. When looking into the success rates, muggles are far more advanced in this field than Witches and Wizards are. The ones I picked are aware of the existence of the magical world, most are married to either a witch or wizard or they have magical children.” He explained.

  
He got up, took her by the elbow again and moved her to the guest room. “You will be staying here for tonight and won’t go to class tomorrow. Try to get some sleep. I’ll speak with the,” He grits his teeth together, “ _adults_ in the Headmaster’s office.” He left.

  
Jay stripped and tried to sleep. Eventually she heard Severus come back. He cracked her door open and closed it again after a few seconds. Eventually she fell asleep.


	8. How To Not Handle Affection, a Guide By Jennifer Potter

There were a lot of things Jay thought about when she woke up. Things like, ‘What the hell do I do now?’ or ‘What the hell happened last night?’.

The answer to the latter was most important to her. Hogwarts was one of her safe places, a place where she fit in even if she was different. That would change now, with what happened. She was obviously not safe here, as wasn’t anyone else. That… that _thing_ she heard last night, was it even human? Chills slipped down her spine at the thought of the voice she heard. She hoped the teachers would find out what happened last night, and fast.

Since she didn’t have school today, or so Severus had said, she decided to go for a stroll on the school grounds.

That was probably her first mistake of the day. Faced with stares, whispers and the occasional douche that thought it was okay to yell horrible things to her, had her leaving for the woods behind the quidditch pitch. While in the forest she felt like she could breath again. Only the occasional bird was heard tweeting and she went deeper into the woods.

She took out her new training suit, thick dark green sweatpants with a sleeveless hoodie and her cloth dancing boots with hard soles. She absently bound her hands while leaning against a tree. She looked at the thick forest roof and let herself be lost in the energy that always seemed to radiate from the forest. It was as if it were sentient and tried to reassure her that she was safe here. Away from prying eyes and judgment, away from the cruelness of society as the wind swept her hair.

She took out a hair tie and braided her hair as she spotted the perfect spot for her warm-up.

```````````````````````````````

Severus would never admit it, but he was slightly panicking. When he returned from breakfast and once more checked on his charge, expecting her to still be right where he left her not twenty minutes ago, she was gone. And he couldn’t find her.

This was bad, very very bad. Was there something he did? The girl had been granted the day off and he thought she’d sleep in, not that she’d be, well, _gone._

After searching his entire quarters, he hadn’t found her. He left a note for her in case she came back before he did. He walked as fast as he could to Flitwick, hoping he’d have a clue as to where the girl might have gone, she was after all one of his favorite students. When he didn’t know either, Severus was at a wits end. Had she taken off fully? Gone to Spain or wherever she’d gone during the holidays? That damned girl. Couldn’t she be a little more predictable? She’d already outsmarted him on several occasions. Of course, first year with the Potion’s guild, then practically all teachers safe for Flitwick and Sprout with her end year’s exams… honestly, if they didn’t keep a close eye on the girl she’d leave the country at this point and not return due to the misdoings to her. He couldn’t blame the girl if she did, but honestly, she wasn’t so bad to have around. Intelligence in the plenty, snarky in a way you’d miss unless she wants you to know she’d being cheeky to you, and very undependable.

Though the last brought issues. Lots of them.

Far ahead of her peers, meant she was bored often. The cheekiness could get her into trouble with the wrong people, as displayed during several ‘fights’ she’d had since she’d arrived, and the independableness… was a huge issue. She was confused when he did things for her, like baking breakfast in the weekend for the both of them. When he checked on her subtly during the day, yet not subtle enough to go unnoticed by her, and then last night happened.

She probably didn’t know what to do with it. He already treads carefully in the area’s that she outlined for him as acceptable, and even the small act of holding her hand in comfort must have been very alien to the girl. Thinking back to her reaction, she’d reacted not so badly and had allowed him to hold her hand for a bit before pulling back. It was a risk he’d taken, and now he paid the consequences of it. He’d pushed the limits of their unstable relation and now she was gone. There was no way that was a coincidence.

Classes were about to start, but this was slightly more important. He headed to the Headmaster to alert him of the missing student when he heard a student yell for him.

“Professor, wait! Please I just need a minute!”

Severus turned around, ready to snarl at the student. He was, however, surprised by whom he faced.

“Professor,” Charlie huffed out, clearly out of breath, “Professor, I’ve been looking for you all morning. Please, wait just a moment!” Charlie ran as fast as he could to the unmoving professor.

“I don’t have time for this, Mr. Potter. There are more important things right now than your failing grades.” The man hisses out. He turns to leave.

“Please professor, this isn’t about that! I heard what happened yesterday, and no one wants to tell me anything besides that you took Jennifer with you!”

Severus turns around, surprised at the concern the boy shows. “Mr. Potter, I did indeed take your sister with me yesterday, have you seen her or heard anything about her being seen this morning?” He asks. It can never hurt to ask the boy, he seemed to always know most about the gossip going around the school, and it’s gotten the boy in trouble in more than a few occasions.

“What? No, I haven’t seen her… she wasn’t at breakfast and no one knew where she went. Do you… _not_ know where she is?” The boy looks rather worried now, a disbelieving look on his face as he furrows his brow.

Severus jaw flexes, and he must be out of practice with his poker face if the boy actually can pick up on it. Lying wouldn’t help him any more now. “No. She was gone this morning and hasn’t been seen. I was about to alert the rest of the teachers-”

“Have you checked the roof yet?” The boy interrupts, and when he realizes that the professor has no idea where to look he begins to explain, “She likes high places, dangerous ones. I know that because I sometimes followed her when she got up really early, back at home. I’ve seen her in some wacky places. Or the forest – have you checked there yet? – she loves nature and being outside. She goes almost every day for running…”

Severus takes an urgent step forward, “Mr. Potter, how do you know this?”

He looks bashful and everts his eyes to the ground, “I- I know she’s more then she lets people think. I never told anyone about this, because- because she got so little freedom compared to me… and I don’t think it’s fair. She deserves to have her own space, you know? If mom and dad found out, and if they made sure that she’d not get those moments…” The heavily implied _she wouldn’t have made it_ goes unsaid, but from the look his professor is giving him, he knows. Her flame would have been stamped out, and… he doesn’t really want to think about what would have become of his sister. “So, have you checked there yet?” He once again asks, with higher urgency now.

Severus weighs his options.

“I haven’t.”


	9. A Close Call

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! Long time, no update. I know I said there would be more updates in the vacations, truth is, I've been pretty depressed lately and didn't feel like writing. Now though, I'm feeling ok so I finally found the motivation to write a new chapter. I hope you enjoy as always, even though it's not that long of a chapter. Until next time! 
> 
> P.s, I wouldn't mind you guys giving some prompt as to where you want this story to go, so tell me in the comments if there is something you really want for Jay to do! 
> 
> <3
> 
> I own nothing. All rights belong to J. K. Rowling.

Jay knew she should go back. She really should. But she didn’t want to. She didn’t want to go back where everyone felt like they got to judge her. Where she had to pretend.

She slowly opened her eyes to reveal an upside-down world. The sun was shining, and even though her breath came out in white clouds it was unbearably hot. It was the magic, boiling in her veins, pulsing through her, always ready to react. She pulled herself up on the tree branch once more, for the last time, and made her way back to the stem of the gigantic tree.

She started packing up, putting her robes on, followed by her cloak. She didn’t hurry, wanting to stretch out the final few minutes she had in the forest and knowing what a shitshow was probably waiting for her at the castle. At the time, it had been an impulsive thought, to come out here. Unthought through properly, and when she did think about it, it had been a mistake. Severus had probably noticed her missing by now. She vaguely wondered if he’d care enough to come looking for her, or if he even noticed at all.

She took one last look at the view, marveling at the beauty of it, before she turned around and walked straight off the branch. She changed into her phoenix form and slowly glided to the edge of the woods.

There was no feeling like flying. She was meant to be in the skies, to be liberated of humanity, chaining her to the grounds. Up here, she was free. Lazily gliding thought the air, loving the feeling of the air running under her wings. She had all the space she could ever need up in the sky. She looked down to see where she could land, when black clad man caught her eye.

She looked Severus dead in the eye.

Holding her cool, she merely flapped her wings in strong, certain movements and sped off in the trees. If she’d looked behind her, she’d have seen the man almost drop his jaw in shock.

``````````````````````````````````````

Back at the castle Jay fled to the Gryffindor common room, narrowly avoiding several fifth years. She was so not in the mood for any more yelling in her direction. She made it to the girl’s dorm and flopped down on her bed.

She laid there for a moment, before sitting up and reaching for her bookshelf, settling with reading _Biology; A global Approach_. She was already at chapter 31 by the time the door to her dorm opened again, yet she was too invested in her reading to notice it for a while. Just as she was reading the thermology for deuteromycetes, the book in her hands was thrown aside and she was pulled into a hug. She immediately threw the person off her and rolled off the other side of the bed before she even heard the person speak to her.

It was Hermione, Charlies friend. Whatever she was saying before was replaced with a loud squeak as the other second year hit the floor. “Aw!” she complained as the girl pulled herself to her feet. “Why would you do that?!”

Jay sputtered indignantly, “Why would I-? You’re the one who jumped on top of me!” Jay got back on het feet. “What are you doing here anyway? Don’t you have class?”

“You don’t know?” Hermione asked, looking perplexed.

Jay furrowed her brow, “Know what?”

“We’ve been looking everywhere for you! Everywhere! The teachers thought that you left, and that you weren’t coming back!”

If it were possible, Jay looked even more confused now. “What are you talking about? Why wouldn’t I come back?”

“Well, there were rumors, about you taking off the entire summer? And now with basically everyone being so- so mean to you, they thought…”

“They thought wrong. Even when I left this summer, I left a note. I wouldn’t leave and not let anyone know that I was leaving for good.” Jay picked her book up and ploffed back on the bed.

“So… it’s true then?”

“Hm?” Couldn’t the girl leave already? She was starting to get on her nerves again.

“Some thought it wasn’t true, about you leaving. I mean, where would you go?”

“Oh, it’s true alright,” Jay looked at the girl, “As for where I’d go, anywhere but at that house. Anywhere was good to be.”

“We have to go tell the teachers, there were more than a few looking for you.”

“Sure.”

``````````````````````````````````````````

Jay knew that adults were annoying, but there was nothing more annoying that a nagging adult, who felt it was their right to chew you out for something stupid. Like leaving the private rooms of your temporary guardian while having been given a day off.

She sighed again. Severus was still ranting pretty angerly at her, like he had been for the last hour or so.

“-I cannot believe you would do something so irresponsible-”

Enough.

She looked away, giving the window a longing look and wishing she hadn’t come back at all. Why were all adults pretty much useless unless it came to yelling? They all seemed to excel at that.

“Look at me while I’m talking to you!” Oh, great he’d turned red again. How did he keep his voice? Perhaps a spell…

“Are you even listening?!”

She merely raised an eyebrow, “No? I stopped listening after the first five minutes of you yelling at me.” She got up and walked to the door.

“Where do you think you’re going?” The man snarled.

She didn’t stop. She merely walked through the doorway, hearing the man begin his screaming again behind her that she couldn’t leave yet. When she showed no sign of responding, Severus went after her and grabbed her by the arm. She stopped, broke his grip in an instant and said, eyes ablaze, “Don’t touch me.” Severus sneered at the girl. She may be his charge, but he was still not finished with her yet. She wasn’t allowed to leave until he it absolutely clear how disappointed and angry he was with her.

When the girl turned to leave again, he grabbed her arm once more. Bad idea, he concluded only a split second later. Before he knew it, he was on the floor holding his throbbing, yet numb hand. He stared up at a Jennifer who was wearing a steel face, the type of face he’d seen others make during fights in the last war. The type of face such a young child shouldn’t know how to make. Her eyes were dead, yet sharp.

“I said, _don’t touch me_.” She hissed at the man, the words said with such venom that whatever the man was about to say died momentarily in his throat, before finding them again. And started his rant again while picking himself off the floor.

Of course, she lost house points for harming a teacher and the ‘disappearing’. She lost a total of fifty points that day and it was yet another reason that when she sat down that night at dinner, there was only one Gryffindor sitting with her, while many other students were giving her the stinking eye.

Only Nev was her friend now. Th others, they could die in a fire for all she cared. She thought it was mutual feeling.

“Don’t listen to them Jay,” Nev whispered to her, “They’re just a bunch of idiots.”

She smiled at that. Why would she care? She had Neville by her side it seemed, and that was more than enough for now.


	10. Neville's Training

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! I got the insperation for this chapter from ShamaniteChar. Thank you for the prompt and i hope you enjoy it! <3 Again, if there is something you really want to see, comment down below!
> 
> I don't own anything. All rights belong to J. K. Rowling.

The next few weeks went by quickly.

She wished that she could say there wasn’t a lot that happened, but that would be a big lie. It seemed that Severus and Jay’s stiff relationship was slowly crumbling away, only further proving to the girl how her view on adults was correct. They had barely spoken since the incident.

On Halloween, a paralyzed student was found. The fourth year Ravenclaw student was supposedly paralyzed the same way Mrs. Norris is. On the wall was writing once more, but with the amount of rumors going around, it was impossible to tell what had really happened.

One thing everyone seemed to agree upon though, Jay did it. She once again didn’t have anything to prove where she was. She was the only student who wasn’t at the Halloween feast, besides of course the kids in the hospital wing. This accompanied with their earlier suspicion of her, made her the guilty party in their eyes. Even Charlie’s reassuring words weren’t enough to squash the many rumors about her.

Jay didn’t care much. She still had Neville, whom believed her upon the first glance, and -apparently- her brother. While Charlie couldn’t convince anyone besides his two best friends and the Weasleys of her innocence, it meant a lot to her that he even tried.

The bullies who dared to get too close to her got their arses handed to them in a quick flurry of movements, while quips thrown her way barely got an eyeroll from her.

It wasn’t until Neville showed up with a large bruise on his arm that she started to care.

“Nev, what happened to your arm?”

Neville looked spooked and immediately pulled his sleeves down over his wrists. “Nothing,” He tried to sound convincing, but Jay saw right through it. “It’s nothing, Jay, don’t worry about it.”

However, Jay wasn’t about to let him get away with it that easily. “And why does ‘Nothing’ look like finger shaped bruises on your arm?”

“I- I- Uh…” Her friend stuttered, trying to come up with a good excuse on the spot. “…” He closed his mouth, knowing that he was caught and there was nothing that he could say that would get his best friend to let it go. He hung his head instead.

“Nev… who hurt you?”

Neville shivered at the tone Jay took, sounding soft, but with an underlying tone promising death to those who had dared to lay finger on him.

“No one. It- it doesn’t matter. Look there were a few guys, they were just being stupid okay? It’s nothing.”

“A few?”

“…”

Jay exhaled, slow and low. “Anyone we know?”

Neville shook his head.

“Did you get them back?” She asked, and only once Neville raised his head did he realize Jay was serious.

“Wa- how? How could I get them back? There were like six of them!”

“So?”

“What do you mean, ‘So?’ There was no way I could have taken them all at once!”

Jay looked away, and Neville knew from the pensive look she had, that she was making a big decision. “I could…” she murmured, barely loud enough to be heard.

“Hm?”

“I could teach you.”

Neville frowned in confusion. “Teach me what?”

Jay glanced at the clock. Almost time for her to go. Neville almost sighed at the determined air around the girl. Whenever she got like that, there was no stopping her.

“Do you have sport clothes?”

While confused at the question Neville answered it either way. “No. Why?”

“I could transfigure some of mine to fit you, that should work.” Jay murmured as got up and left for her room, while Neville sat on the couch, lost at what his friend was talking about.

``````````````````````````````````

Half an hour later, Nev had figured out what was going on. In newly transfigured black sweatpants he looked at the room he was in. There were dummies he’d seen at the auror academy the one time his grandmother had taken him there to see where his father had studied for his work. There were also two punching bags hanging from the ceiling and a little further to the right of that a flooring of mats.

He knew Jay could fight, hell, he’d seen her do it on the odd occasion. But for some reason he never thought about where and when she practiced.

“Here you go.” Jay handed him two strips of cloth, keeping two for herself.

“Thank you?”

Jay smiled, “They are for wrapping your hands, so you don’t injure them. Usually, I train without them though, since in real life, you don’t get the luxury of knowing when you’re going to need to throw a punch.”

“You’re going to teach me how to punch?” He asked with more than a little uncertainty coloring his voice.

“Among other things.” She answered cryptically, before showing him how to wrap them around his hands. It took him three tries and Jay’s help in the end to get them wrapped properly. She then moved them to a punching bag and explained things like how to stand and how to hit without risking broken fingers.

“How do you know these things? I mean, cool, but how?”

“I read. Then practice until my arms threaten to fall off.” She said, mischief in her eyes.

After half an hour of Jay constantly having to readjust his posture and arms, Neville was getting quite frustrated. Jay seemed to notice and suggested they move on to the mats.

“Okay, not judge your teaching, but if we spar, please remember I’m you friend. I’d like to live please.”

Jay cracked out a grin. “We’re not going to spar. I’m just going to teach you a few basic moves to break someone’s grip on you. These come in handy quite often.”

Another forty minutes went by with Jay slowly moving towards him while he applied the moves she’d shown him just a few minutes before. He didn’t manage a single one of them, and while Jay was endlessly patient, Neville was not.

After once again screwing up the move Jay was teaching him, he sighed deeply, “Forget it. I’m never going to learn how to do this. I mean, we’ve been here for over an hour now and where have I gotten? Absolutely nowhere.” He moved away from the mats and slumped against a wall, holding his head in his hands.

“So that’s it then?”

He looked up to see Jay still standing on the mats.

“That’s it?” She repeated, “You’re giving up that easily?”

Frustrated and angry Neville replied, “Guess I am. Not everyone is made for it. I screwed up every single one of the moves, Jay. I couldn’t even wrap my own hands.” He looks away, embarrassed and feeling like a failure.

“So?” Jay asked, eyebrow raised in the way Nev knew she though a person was being a complete idiot.

“What do you mean so?! I can’t do it! You saw how bad I am! I can’t even hold my fists in the right place!” He got up, intended on leaving.

“Yeah, you did mess up.” Jay admitted, and it hurt Nev to hear the deadpan in there, like it was totally obvious from the start he was going to fail. “But you know what? That’s okay Nev.”

Neville stopped in his tracks. What?

“I knew you were going to screw up. But that’s why we’re here, so you can learn how not to screw up.”

At his silence, she continued. “Do you think I got everything right on the first day? Think again, then. It took me a week to figure out how to properly wrap my hands. It took me a month before I could hit a punching bag without my hands hurting like crazy afterwards. It took me multiple months before I was strong enough to even move the punching bag properly with a punch.”

He turned around, shocked at her words.

“The point being, I was at the same point as you are, right now. But we all have to start somewhere, Nev,” Jay walked up to him and placed her hand on his shoulder. “You can’t expect to get things right the first time. It just doesn’t work like that. But, with enough motivation and energy put into it, you can really learn how to kick butt.”

That got the smile Jay was aiming for. “It’s okay to mess up. It’s okay if you mess up a hundred times, a thousand times, just so long as you keep looking for that one-thousand-and-first time, the time you get it right. That’s what matters. You can do this, Nev. Just bite through the beginning. It sucks, I know, but you’ll get better the more you practice it.”

Neville looked at Jay and saw the pure sincerity on her. She meant that, she honestly thought he could do it, and it meant the world to him. She pulled him into a hug and rested her head on top of his.

“It’s okay Nev, it’s okay. I believe in you.” She whispered encouraging words to him. He felt embarrassed as tears of hurt and frustration made their way down his cheeks, years of being belittled had taken his toll on him. Almost everyone always rubbed it in his face how bad he was at everything, even the teachers seemed to jump the bandwagon at that, always keeping an extra eye on him during practical lessons to ensure no one got hurt thanks to his incompetence with magic.

And then there was Jay, this amazingly talented girl, who got crazy good grades, kicked butt and knew so much, and yet was so kind to him. She outshone him in almost everything, and here she was, holding him, letting him cry on her like a baby, telling him that she would teach him, even if he messed it up a thousand times. That he wasn’t a failure because he couldn’t get it right. Telling him that she’d help him get there.

His quiet crying had now turned into heartbroken sobs and they were sitting on the cold stone flooring. He held onto his best friend, his partner in crime, his Jay, as he broke apart, knowing that she’d put him back together again, like he’d done for her at the beginning of the year.

He thanked whatever gods were out there, that he met his best friend.


	11. The Emotional Range Of A Teaspoon Put To Work

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello people, I'm back! Test week has come and gone, and it went realy well! So, to celibrate, the new chapter you've all been waiting for -for way too long- is now here! Hope you enjoy, and if there are any prompts you'd love to see, leave them in the comments, and I'll see what I'll do!
> 
> As always,
> 
> I don't own anything. All rights belong to J. K. Rowling.

Neville was working hard on the exercises Jay had given him. Even though he didn’t know the purpose of some. Like walking a balance beam. As he was doing now. And he was really terrified of falling. Why wasn’t he questioning Jay’s teaching mechanics? Life seemed more fun without the constant threat of falling a meter and a half, at least in his opinion. In Jay’s opinion however, apparently any height wasn’t high enough. He based that hypothesis on the fact that she loved the balance beam, and often times had the room transform so that there were platforms hanging from chains on the ceiling that made him feel sick just looking at it. He almost had a hard attack the first time he saw her casually jump from platform to platform, each wiggling like they were going to fall.

He sighed and carefully turned around on the beam once more to make his way back to where he just came from. He had to admit though, after a week of doing just this and block punches, along with running every day, he could feel the difference. What once took him a lot of encouragement to do, such as even get on the beam, now took just a few words of encouragement from Jay. On top of that, it was becoming gradually easier to walk back and forth on the beam, even if he were still terrified.

On his left Jay was on another balance beam, standing in a handstand on the very edge of it, folding herself neatly in half as she tried to get her feet on non-existing ground in front of her, before going back to her handstand.

His hands were stretched wide apart on both sides of his body, and they still ached from the punches he’d thrown at the sand sacks the day before, his arms an irritated red from continuously making the same movements against the imitation opponent.

“Jay?”

“Hm?” She answered, keeping her focus on the position she was in.

“Don’t you think you should, you know, talk to Charlie? Or Severus?” He asked, putting all his Gryffindor courage to the test.

She flipped back with a cartwheel, looking so practiced that it seemed completely effortless when she did it. It looked as easy as breathing to her, he thought. “What makes you think that I need to talk to them?” She asked, genuinely surprised at his question.

“Well-” He gulped as he miss stepped, and almost fell off. Once he regained his balance, he continued, “Well, Charlie might be an idiot, but he’s your brother. Besides, do you think he meant to hurt you? Because I don’t think so.” He let it sink in for a moment, and from the guilty look on his friend’s face, he knew he’d hit a nerve there.

“I know I shouldn’t take it personally, that he didn’t do anything, or tell anyone. I guess I can’t blame him for that. He probably didn’t even know that what our parents did was wrong.” She sighed. Running a hand through her hair, Neville could almost feel the frustration rolling off of her in waves. “But still, I don’t know why! I don’t know why I blame him, even just a little bit… It’s not like I told anyone, like I did anything about it.”

“It wasn’t your fault Jay. You didn’t ask for this, but-”

“But neither did Charlie.” She interrupted him.

“Exactly.”

She ran her hand over her sweaty forehead. “Why is my life always such a mess?” She smiled sadly. “I’m possibly the worst person at talking about feelings. Like, my teachers at my previous school suggested I seek treatment for what they suspected was some type of communication disorder. They thought I was autistic.” She snorts. “Having the one person whose terrible at talking -in general that is- need to have these types of conversations… it’s a miracle you’re still around. I’m not someone whose easy to be friends with, I know that. And they weren’t exactly wrong about the autism. At least as far as I can tell.”

Neville looked wide eyed at his friend, “What are you talking about?” He couldn’t imagine not having her as a friend, weird as she was.

She chuckles a bit, looking amused at Nev, which he doesn’t get. “Yeah, I’m not very normal in any way, sorry to break it to you, but you’re friends with an absolute weirdo.”

He sorts. “I know you’re a weirdo. I’ve seen you jump off platforms any sane person wouldn’t even attempt to climb like it was nothing, and I’ve seen you take down guys twice your size and weight.” He shakes his head, and Jay laughs at that, the pure desperation he manages in one look. “Nah, I meant, like, what’s autism?”

“What do you mean, what’s autism?”

He sends her an exasperated look. “Like, what is it? Never heard of it.”

Surprised, Jay turns to face Nev again. “Wait, you don’t know what autism is?”

“No?” He smiles as his answer immediately throws Jay into, what he calls encyclopaedia-mode.

“Autism is an collective diagnostic name for people whose brains work differently than others.” She explains as simple as she can.

“That’s possible?” He asks, and Jay at first thinks he’s joking.

“Yeah? I mean, most of the time it’s nothing bad. It can be hardly noticeable, but also make a person’s life extremely hard. I myself think I fall more into the Asperger area.” She informs him. “It’s a lighter form of it, and you can learn and speak well, but oftentimes find it hard to understand language or what other people feel or think.”

“Wait what?” He looks a little lost at that.

She fiddles with a strain of hair, and breathily answers. “Well, it’s what I think anyway. I’ve never had a test to prove it, so I don’t know how ligament of a diagnose it is.” She hesitates a bit, but then decides to tell him more. “You know how I sometimes don’t respond immediately? I have to repeat in my head sometimes what it was you said, before I can understand it.”

Nev had noticed that, he’d just thought she was finishing something, or finishing some train of thought before she answered. He nodded silently, recognising that it had to be hard to tell that.

“Also, the silences I sometimes have in the middle of a sentence, I use them to make sure that what I’m about to say won’t be taken the wrong way by someone.” She keeps looking down. “It… it can be, well, hard. You know, people get annoyed when you have to ask them to repeat  something for the third time, especially when they’re certain that you’ve heard them.”

Suddenly Neville remembers a herbology class in which Jay once asked a classmate four times to repeat something, only to look for help with him. He was the one who gave the girl the shears that were behind Jay that the girl kept asking for her to pass. “Like that time with the shears in herbology?”

“Yeah. Exactly like that.”

“Oh.” He’s silent for a bit, trying to process what she just told him, and deciding that a library search on autism and Asperger is definitely going to be in his planning in the upcoming week.

“So, you know it can be quite hard to understand a person’s point of view for me. I know now that Charlie was not trying to be a douche, but just didn’t know any better.”

“Well, what’s the problem then? Can’t you just talk to him?”

“And say what? Sorry I’ve unreasonably, silently hated you for the bigger part of our lives? Let’s make up?”

Nev rolls his eyes, before realizing that she might mean that. How did he become the expert on emotions? His emotional range was about the same length as a teaspoon in his opinion. “Uhm, well, maybe don’t do that? Just like, ask him to study together sometimes, Merlin knows he needs all help he can get.”

“And then what?” She looks honest-to-Merlin so lost. “What would we talk about? What- what do I even say?”

“Okay, first of all, don’t talk about your parents. Talk about you and Charlie. Talk about something that you could do together? That would probably be a good idea. Second, don’t force it. If you have nothing to say, then say nothing and let him talk.” What else could he say? Jay was definitely taking mental notes on this. Honestly? She and Charlie needed to make up. If she ever had to go back to the Potters, at least then someone was there for her. “Third, ask him about his perspective, about how he saw it, and then explain how that made you feel. Even if those feelings seem unreasonable now.”

“Why am I not supposed to talk about our parents?” She asked.

He tries to explain, “This is about you and Charlie. Not about them. Yeah they have the main role in the story, but so do you two. Does that explain it?”

She still looks a bit confused, but nods anyway. “You know what? I think I’ll try just that. Put my Gryffindor courage to use.”

He smirks, relieved that she’s going to at least try. That would be good enough for now.


End file.
